Detroit signs deal to lease Belle Isle to state

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Detroit signs deal to lease Belle Isle to state

By Joseph Lichterman
DETROIT | Tue Oct 1, 2013 6:15pm EDT

(Reuters) - The state of Michigan signed an agreement Tuesday with Detroit to lease Belle Isle park, saving the city at least $4 million in annual maintenance and operation costs for the recreational landmark.

Leasing the park in the Detroit River has been a priority for Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr since he was appointed in March. The Detroit City Council failed to approve a similar plan in January before a deadline set by Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

Under Michigan's emergency manager law the city council has 10 days to approve the 30-year lease with two 15-year renewals.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/01/us-usa-detroit-belleisle-idUSBRE99018R20131001

[tularetom]

1. It's days as a park are probably numbered

It won't be long before it's subleased to some golf course developer and luxury condos are built along the fairways.

The union members who actually built Detroit won't be welcome there of course.

[Octafish]

2. It gets better: ''The Commonwealth of Belle Isle''

Gov. Gateway Snyder dances when the Koch and DeVos clans tug his strings. They want to transform Belle Isle into an quasi-independent Commonwealth located between the USA and Canada to the south -- a tax shelter identical in spirit with Georgetown in Grand Cayman I kid you not.

As a kayaker, I love Belle Isle.

Detroit's Game Changer

In 1950, Detroit was a vibrant city; the wealthiest in the nation. Now, despite all the efforts of many good people, the city has lost most of its population and is now the poorest, most dangerous, most run down city in America.

Detroit needs a game changer. The 982 acre island of Belle Isle can be that game changer for Detroit. The book Belle Isle is about that vision.

The setting is Belle Isle, 30 years in the future. Twenty nine years prior (2014), Belle Isle was sold by the city of Detroit for $1 billion dollars to a group of investors who believed in individual freedom, liberty and free markets.
They formed their own city-state, with innovative systems of government, taxation, labor and money. People soon came from all over the world to be part of this culture of unlimited opportunity. Belle Isle became the “Midwest Tiger,” rivaling Singapore as an economic miracle. Although numbering only 35,000 citizens, it generated billions of dollars in desperately needed economic growth and became a social laboratory for the western world.

Detroit shared in the genuine Renaissance. The large sum paid for Belle Isle was used to train Detroiters to fill the huge need for construction workers on Belle Isle. Beyond this, the construction of this remarkable new nation by private money provided years of economic boost for Detroit and Southeast Michigan, and the sparks generated by the fires of “can do” optimism and a new social pact jumped the river, causing factories and farms to be built in Detroit, restoring it to its former glory.

Big changes take big ideas, power arising from noble intent, and leaders of great vision and courage. It happened before with the birth of America. It can happen again.

All this is possible on Belle Isle.

SOURCE: http://www.commonwealthofbelleisle.com/

I wouldn't believe it, were this an alternate reality.